


How the Dragon Do

by GutterBall



Series: Dragons and Princes and Promises, Oh My! [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Cussing, Dragon AU, Dragon!raleigh, Fluff, M/M, Raleigh's a puppy no matter how big he is, Ridiculousness, prince!Chuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 14:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14499138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GutterBall/pseuds/GutterBall
Summary: Raleigh still can't quite believe Chuck will stay. Humans have never been trustworthy, in his experience, and while Chuck seems honorable enough... well... it means a little too much to him to not have his barriers up. Dragons may be nigh invulnerable, but this one's heart is squishy and all too easy to break.Luckily, Chuck means exactly what he says: he wants to stay. With Raleigh. Yes, forever.Now, he just has to convince the silly sausage of that fact.





	How the Dragon Do

**Author's Note:**

> Title from that hilarious video about cuttlefish, "And That's How the Cuttlefish Do". You know the one. If you don't, google it. It's priceless.

The prince and the dragon stood several feet apart in the cave lair, studying each other. It was the sort of silence that followed sudden battles, natural disasters, and, clearly, surprise marriage arrangements that neither of them had expected. Finally, the prince spoke.

"You're not changing back?"

Raleigh smirked, though he wasn't sure how it would look on his snout. He'd been human for less than an hour all told, and he already liked human expressions better than his own, more familiar ones. They would, at least, be easier for his human to interpret.

"You said you had trouble concentrating when my dick is out." The smirk -- or whatever -- deepened at the color climbing up his human's neck. "I thought we should discuss this new deal we've struck before... finalizing it."

Chuck crossed his arms, red-faced and grumbling. "Told you before, mate. It's not a deal." He cleared his throat and looked away. "I wanna be with you. That's it."

Despite the flare of color and the human's weirdly endearing gruffness, Raleigh couldn't help but be unconvinced. Humans always wanted something more. Something they kept secret until the precise moment of maximum betrayal. He didn't _think_ Chuck would demand too much more of him, but... it was hard not to remember how many times over the centuries humans had proven their natures.

"You don't, perhaps, wish to see my hoard of gold, of gems, of treasures that would make you rich beyond even a prince's dreams of wealth?"

His human raised one of his eyebrows. "Do you have one? All I see hoarded here are pillows."

Sheepish and glad that wasn't an expression that showed well on a dragon's features, Raleigh bared his teeth in a wide smile. "They are more comfortable than gold." The caution came back, tempering his sheepish amusement. "Besides, what need have I of gold or gems or treasure?"

Chuck's eyes narrowed. "You sound formal as fuck right now, mate. Is there something I should know?"

He felt his face scrunch up at the human's insight. He had, indeed, become more formal. He just... was preparing himself. For the inevitable disappointment. Better to get the worst out now so he could adjust his strategy for dealing with his new human for however long Chuck decided to stay.

He didn't think "forever" was realistic. Not without some negotition, potential marriage notwithstanding.

Dammit.

"Seriously, Raleigh. What's the drama? You think I'm gonna rob you -- a fucking _dragon,_ might I remind you -- and climb down a mountain with the loot and haul it a half-day's hike back to the fucking castle?"

_No._

Well, not exactly.

Sighing, Chuck strode closer, then reached up and -- what the fuck? -- grabbed one of the fangs that protruded down over his lower lip.

The balls on this human.

"Oi, get that big, stupid face down here and hold your goddamn breath so you don't roast me."

Half afraid of slicing the fragile little being's skin if he so much as twitched the wrong way, Raleigh warily lowered his head until his eyes were roughly on Chuck's level, dutifully holding his breath. The human glared, green eyes sparking with... anger? Annoyance?

Hard to tell. Raleigh wasn't human enough to know what the human felt.

"Right. Listen up, ya giant scaly wanker." He actually gave the fang a shake, though it only moved Raleigh's head because he allowed it to. "I'm not here for anything you have. I'm here for _you._ Forgetting the fact that your ass is prettier than all the gold in the world, you're a good bloke that had my back in a potential fight after meeting me _once._ You'd have fought my own father if he'd kept trying to marry me off against my will."

Something softened in the human's face, and the anger/annoyance turned into a somewhat irritated, crooked grin. Raleigh felt something taut and rigid inside him... bend. Just the slightest bit.

Perhaps... perhaps just this one human was different. Very slightly different.

Different enough to... maybe believe. A little.

"You said you'd help me escape if I stayed forever. As far as I'm concerned, mate, the deal hasn't changed. You did help me escape, though not exactly how we planned it, so I'm staying forever. My old man wants us to make it official, and I'm not opposed to that because... I promised I'd stay. And I meant it."

He shrugged, letting go of the fang to stroke down under Raleigh's jaw and... oh, glory be... scritch juuuuust right at the thinner, sensitive, long-neglected plate scales there. Forgetting that he was supposed to be holding his breath, Raleigh tilted his muzzle up to expose that sweet spot and let out a chuffing, rumbling groan, slumping all his bulk to the ground as if his legs had gone numb.

The human chuckled and scritched harder. Shivering, Raleigh let out another purring chuff and rolled to his back, surrendering completely. Chuck could kill him right now, if he chose. A dragon had very few vulnerable spots, but the smaller, less armor-like scales under the chin and down the throat were perhaps the most glaring ones beside his eyes. A spear up through that thin, leathery plating and up into his brain, and Raleigh would be as dead as Those Who Returned to the Old Soil.

If Chuck wanted to betray him... if Chuck were like every other human he'd ever come across....

"Jesus, mate, you're like a goddamn puppy."

Chuckling again, the human leaned over and... oh, glory to the heavens above and the fires below... _scritched with both hands._

The most embarrassingly loud rumble escaped him, shivering all the way up his throat, and his front right leg began to twitch with the pleasure of it. He squirmed, trying to keep his head still so those lovely scritches didn't stop.

"Like that, do ya?"

 _Like_ didn't even begin to cover the sensation. The pleasure was damn near sexual, but it felt too pure and delicious to ascribe other meaning to. He did not merely like this treatment.

He fucking _loved_ it.

"Oh, my God, you are bloody _adorable!"_

He should probably be ashamed of being one of the elders and still being mistaken for something small and cuddly and cute, but at the moment, he was in the grip of the scritches. Shame was for later. Or maybe never.

Never would be better.

"Oi, watch your tail. You're fucking up your pillows."

He couldn't care even a single drop less. Pillows could be replaced and repiled.

But the scritches slowed to soft, lingering strokes of soothing hands anyway, and if he was honest, he appreciated the gentle comedown from such intense bliss. Slumping bonelessly, he curled lazily on his side, his neck still stretched out and exposed for this less visceral pleasure. He sighed a heavy, steamy breath, rumbling again but without the chuffing catches from before.

"That good, eh?"

"Mmmm."

Chuckling again, his human gave him a few more lingering strokes, then sat down on the ground beside his bared throat and slung an arm over as much of the expanse as he could. It didn't quite go all the way, and there was no pressure to the gesture, no attempt to cut off air. Just... a continued moment of connection while Raleigh came back to himself.

"That knock the formal out of you, ya goddamn puppy?"

The words were a curse, but his human's voice was warm with amusement and... affection? Though he was loathe to move, Raleigh twisted his head enough to eye the little creature without dislodging the casual connection of arm over neck.

Sure enough, Chuck was grinning softly, a cavern of a dimple on one side of his mouth and a smaller but still devastating dimple on the other.

Grinning enough to bare at least half his teeth, Raleigh huffed. "Fuck me, but it's been centuries since I let someone do that."

A strange expression crossed the human's face. "Oi, who was that, then? You make a habit of keeping humans about?"

Was... was Chuck... _jealous?_ Was that good or bad? Part of him wanted to caper, but the rest of him didn't want to live without scritches.

He narrowed his eyes, deciding to err on the side of caution. "It was my brother. No human has ever touched me as you have."

To his relief, the little human brightened and stroked his hand over a much-thicker neck plate. "Yeah?" The brighter expression turned wicked. "That mean you've never fucked a human before?"

Snorting, he started to roll to his feet, but Chuck held on, even throwing his meager weight across Raleigh's neck. As if he could hold him down.

Though... it didn't hurt to let him think he could.

"You haven't! Jesus Christ, I get to pop a dragon's cherry!"

Snorting again -- this time with a hint of fire in it, because really, there was such a thing as _too far_ \-- he rolled out from underneath the brat of a human he'd taken in for some reason he refused to remember right now and stood to his full height.

"Just because I haven't fucked a human doesn't mean I haven't fucked." He really needed some better descriptors than _puny human_. Chuck had all sorts of smirk-filled descriptors. "Besides, it isn't like you've been fucking dragons left and right."

Still smirking up at him, his human stood proudly before him with his arms crossed. "True enough. Reckon it'll be a first for both of us, then."

Rumbling in neither agreement nor disagreement, Raleigh turned his attention to righting his pillow hoard. A few of the smaller ones had suffered a severe loss of stuffing from his lashing tail, but the rest were fine, and he soon had them in order. He should probably offer to go hunt. Dragons, with their slower metabolisms, could eat sufficient meat to allow them to nap for decades, but if he remembered correctly, humans needed to eat every few hours and rarely slept even half a day. He'd have to get used to that, he supposed. To being awake. To providing sufficient food.

If Chuck stayed. Maybe he really would.

A strange sensation distracted him, and he twitched his hips and then his shoulders with it. What the--

"Oi, hold still, ya twitchy fuck. Ya want me to fall off?"

He jerked his head around, eyes wide, and sure enough, there was Chuck, crawling determinedly up over his withers. Once just above them, his human sat and grinned up at him, proud of himself.

"What? Looked like you were primping for a nap, yeah? Thought I'd join you."

He blinked. "Don't you want me to transform for that?"

To his credit, Chuck considered it. Then, he shrugged. "Reckon it might be more comfortable, and I definitely wanna cuddle up to that human body of yours as soon as you're ready for it, but I reckon I should get used to this side of you, too."

That feeling in his chest again. Fire and his beating heart, warm and heavy and... dear. "You don't mind this body?"

Sighing, the human leaned back on his hands. "Raleigh, mate, you're a dragon. I'm not asking you to be a human all the time. That's not who you are. You're a _dragon,_ so I'd ought to get used to the dragon side of you, yeah?"

It was as if the little morsel had been listening to his own thoughts about how he needed to get used to Chuck's human requirements. It was... nice. A reciprocation, even if Chuck didn't know it.

A promise between them.

Touched but unwilling to let it show just yet, Raleigh swallowed awkwardly and shifted his weight carefully from one set of legs to the other without dislodging his precious cargo.

"Are you hungry?"

Chuck's eyebrows went up. Both of them this time. "Reckon I could eat. Thought you were ready for a nap, though."

He considered and discarded several responses before deciding to go for a reciprocal truth. "Humans eat far more frequently than dragons do and sleep far less. I would rather eat and rest with you as you need."

To his surprise, Chuck actually looked flustered, as if he hadn't just made his own concessions as to their differences. It was ridiculously adorable. Endearing as hell.

Raleigh found himself grinning and didn't bother hiding it this time.

"Oi, ya sap."

Rumbling a chuckle, he started for his cave's opening, trying not to move too suddenly and jolt his fragile human passenger into a fall.

"Oi, easy does it! Nothing to hold onto here, mate!"

He paused midstep and focused his attention, changing just enough to suit the situation. A tingle rolled up and down his spine from just behind his first set of horns to just above the tip of his tail. Flexible spines sprouted along the line, not as fine as hair but not as stiff as the bone ridges of the ancients, either. That should give his human something to hang onto as they flew.

Sure enough, when he glanced back, Chuck had already gotten the picture and was crawling up a bit to wrap his hands around the nearest spine, straddling his neck as if it were a ludicrously wide horse. When he got a good hold, he looked up at Raleigh and grinned.

"Thanks, mate. Though I reckon you're quick enough to catch me if I fall off."

The fire in his chest warmed again. "I won't let you fall, Chuck."

They stared at each other again, another long moment of silence. This time, though, it didn't have the feel of a battle just past. This time, it felt... portentous.

Then, the human quirked that crooked, dimpled grin and gave Raleigh's neck an affectionate pat. "I know that, mate." He tugged lightly at the spine in his grasp. "Off we go, then."

Grinning and feeling far better about the situation than before, feeling like maybe there was one trustworthy human after all, Raleigh crept to the nearest ledge and spread his wings. He focused on the light weight just above his withers, the grasp on the all-important spine. When he was sure he'd notice any change in that barely-there pressure, he spread his wings.

"I fucking love this part."

Yeah. He did, too.

Feeling like he was standing on the edge of something far more important than the cliffside outside his lair, Raleigh took the leap.

**THE END**


End file.
